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Blue Ridge Marathon, 2015

Just going to write down a few quick thoughts since I never actually did a race report. This was my first ever marathon. I trained one long run, once a week, and was always sore from those. I ramped up my training from early January to April. I did not know about cross training or foam rolling. I did know about nutrition though and practiced that. I should have done speed workouts. I had done my first official half marathon (Real Girls Run Half Marathons) just 6 months before and bounced my training off of that. I trained up to 20 miles in the winter. 10 days before my marathon, I got my classic spring sinus infection.

The day of the race it topped out with high humidity and 86°F and full sun. It was a beautiful day, but made my challenges a lot harder. In that there were no gels or energy on course, just electrolytes, although I had specifically asked if there were going to be any (the answer was yes, this mile this mile and this mile and so on). The story I was told was that the half marathoners took them all before the marathoners could get them. I was able to obtain one gel at mile 15 from a guy who had an extra passing me as he finished the blue ridge double marathon. I was grateful, but it wasn’t enough to really get me through the whole race. The hardest wall I’ve ever hit was at mile 24.5, when I thought I was going to just pass out from dehydration and lack of energy to burn and the heat between downtown buildings. I walked the rest of the way finishing that marathon in 6 hours and 12 minutes.